Free The Devil Wears Tartan by Karen Ranney Page A

regarded him, uncertain of what to say or even to think. The strangest feeling overcame her, not unlike the sensation she had when reading one of her novels. It was as if his words had triggered some emotion deep inside her heart. Some yearning or some excitement for which she was unprepared.
    “I could be either,” she said, as affable as he. “My father used to say that I had no end to courage. But that courage, like chocolate, should be indulged in sparingly.”
    “He sounds like a wise man. Did you never heed his advice?”
    “As often as I could. However, that was not always.”
    She hesitated a moment, and then spoke again. “There is only my aunt left to me, and your uncle to you.” She pressed her hands flat against her skirts, conscious of her aunt’s words. “We’re orphans and nearly without relations. Wouldn’t it be a wondrous thing if we could find family in each other?”
    He turned away again, his gaze intent on the far horizon.
    Evidently she’d overstepped her boundaries.
    “Pardon me,” she said, forcing a smile to her face. “It is all too evident that you don’t feel the same. What, then, can I expect in the way of a marriage? Are there more rules?”
    “Only the most important one.”
    “Yes. Well.” She lifted her skirts, turned, and began to walk away.
    Perhaps she should say something in parting, but she couldn’t imagine that he’d be offended by the fact she’d left him so precipitously. In fact, she had the decided impression that he’d be more than happy to see her leave.
    “We have managed to achieve a significant level of firsts with each other, my lady wife,” he said, turning. “Be content with that.”
    She faced him. “Do you call me that because you can’t remember my name? It’s Davina. It’s common enough. I could go by something else, if you choose. And what firsts would those be, Your Lordship?”
    “I have bedded you, and you nearly fainted in my arms.”
    She really was annoyed at the flush traveling up her chest to her face. It was too warm and too prickly, like a rash instead of simple embarrassment.
    The grip on her skirt was so tight that she was sure she was ruining the fabric. She forced her hands wide, and patted the warm material she’d wrinkled a moment earlier.
    “Is that entirely proper? Bringing up what happened in our marriage bed, I mean.” She tilted her head back and straightened her shoulders.
    “This is not going to be a proper marriage.”
    She nodded as if she understood. In actuality, she didn’t understand anything, especially how a man who’d been so charming the night before could be so cold and distant the next morning.
    She took a deep breath and forced herself to smile. “Is it your intention to simply treat me as you would a stranger? Or someone whose name you can’t remember? An Edinburgh acquaintance, perhaps, that you haven’t seen for a while?”
    When he didn’t respond, she turned to leave him again. When he didn’t call her back, when he made no comment at all, she glanced at him over her shoulder to find him looking at her. She wished he didn’t have such striking brown eyes or that way of regarding something so intently. She wanted to ask what he was thinking. She wanted, even more so, even more foolishly, to ask him what he thought of her.
    Before she could counsel herself that such an actwas foolish, if not downright idiotic, she turned and marched back to him, stopping only when she was directly in front of him. His smile had disappeared but that intent gaze remained. She knew why, now, his look was so troublesome. His eyes were brown, true, but the center of them was black and wide, deep and dark like a loch with overhanging trees, causing the water to appear mysterious, and not a little frightening.
    “Were you displeased with me last night?”
    Oh, what a foolish girl she was. What a simpleton. But she didn’t pull back the question. Nor did she mitigate it with an explanation. She simply let it